Athena Dialup Service -- SSH

SSH is a popular program used to securely connect between
machines. Modern versions are capable of using Kerberos to
authenticate.

Generally, ssh involves users generating public/private key pairs and
using them to authenticate: however, on the dialups, the sshd will ask
you for your password instead. (The reason for this is that you need
to get Kerberos tickets to be able to do things like read your files
and incorporate your mail, and you can't get tickets without typing
your password.)

To use ssh to connect to the dialups, just do:

ssh athena.dialup.mit.edu

If your username on the machine you're connecting from is not the same
as your Athena username, you'll need to use the -l option:

ssh athena.dialup.mit.edu -l cmvest

The first time you connect, ssh will tell you:

Host key not found from the list of known hosts.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?

Type `yes'. It will respond:

Host 'athena.dialup.mit.edu' added to the list of known hosts.
cmvest's password:

What if I can't install an ssh client on my machine

I'm paranoid! How do I know that someone isn't spoofing
me into accepting the wrong host key the first time I connect?

Theoretically, someone could trick you into accepting a false key
the first time you try to connect to one of the dialups, and use this
to capture your password. The odds of this are low, but in case you're
concerned about it, here are the fingerprints for the SSH keys in use
on the dialup.mit.edu servers.